In preparations to the 2019 General Elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday released data of its continuous voters registration (CVR) exercise.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports a gender analysis of the data shows that 7,386,583 females and 6,247,831 males have been registered so far, resulting in a total of 13,634,414 new registrants.
According to the INEC new registration statistics, while a total of 854,362 Nigerians have recently collected their permanent voters cards (PVCs), 696,643 made transfer requests and 1,067,406 made replacement requests.
TNG reports the ongoing CVR exercise across the country commenced on 27th April 2017, the Commission opening permanent registration centres in all its 774 Local Government offices and 672 other centres
“This was to ensure that all-year round, Nigerians who turn 18 years and who had not registered previously have an opportunity to register,” INEC stated.
In order to have enough time to clean up the provisional register and print the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) in good time for the general elections the Commission, after consultation with stakeholders, decided to suspend the exercise with effect from 17th August 2018, to resume after the elections.
However, many Nigerians appealed to the Commission to extend the exercise. Consequently, the Commission decided to extend the CVR to 31st August 2018.
The exercise continues in all the designated registration centres every day, including weekends, but excluding public holidays, between 9am and 5pm.
INEC said that “the CVR figures released included Anambra 2017, Ekiti and Osun state RA level CVR. The 2016 EVR is the 2015 EVR figures plus figures from RA level CVR in Ondo, Bayelsa, Kogi, Edo and FCT”.